Dialing From Documents

by Kendall Callas

Do you dial the phone much? If so, it's time to enlist your PC to help you find and
dial phone
numbers. Perhaps you've already typed into the computer the firm's phone list or your
personal
Rolodex file -- now it's time to make the machine dial, too. Several programs can dial the
phone
for you, even WordPerfect!

MODEM REQUIRED

You'll need a modem if you want your computer to dial for you. It
connects the phone line to
your computer and translates ("modulates/demodulates") the signals between them. Then
plug a
phone into the other jack in the modem.

You'll also need a modem to access information services:

Lexis and Westlaw

ABA/net

the Judicial Council BBS

Compuserve's LAWSIG

You can spend as little as $50 for a plain Jane 2400 bps modem. (A "fax/modem" can
also send
and receive faxes for only $100 more.)

To use a modem, you'll need a normal analog phone line with modular connections.
(Most
phones are analog; if in doubt, you can tell your telephone is analog if you have a rotary dial
or if
it shows on the bottom a "Ringer Equivalence Number" or REN.) If you have digital
electronic
phones, or a PBX, you may need to make special arrangements with your vendor or the
phone
company -- the same arrangements you made when you installed your FAX machine.

USING WORDPERFECT TO DIAL

DIAL is a feature-packed macro for WordPerfect 5.1 (for DOS). It scans your
WordPerfect
document to pickup a phone number from your text and dials it. First, you may optionally
add a
"1" prefix for toll calls, or add a Comment to record the
call in a phone log (which may be sorted
to produce a usage report). You may redial the last call at any time. Once dialing begins,
the
number is redialed every 15 seconds until you hit a key. (Beat that busy signal!) Press
Cancel/F1
at any time to quit. It works fine with WordPerfect Office and is smarter than some
commercial
programs -- it won't think the date is a phone number.

The program is especially helpful for 2 types of intensive dialing tasks:

Rosters. The macro keeps your place, moving the cursor down
as you go, so it's easy to dial
numbers progressing down a list.

Voicemail support. You may trail a phone number with digits to press
to select from
computerized voicemail and information systems. You know, press 1 for your balance, 2 for
product information, etc. This might include your account #, password, menu selections, #
and *
symbols, but no letters. Use commas to add two-second pauses, to wait for the phone
system or
the computer on the other end.

A typical number might look like one of these:

1-800-847-4200,,,3
979-5879,,, 01, 258263*,4-2-1
*70,1-415-767-1234

After the macro highlights a phone number, you may press "N"
(Next) to skip down through
several phone numbers until it finds the number you want. If too much of a phone number
has
been highlighted, the left arrow may be used to trim the highlighting. The starting point of
the
highlighting may be repositioned with any movement key (say, Home Home Left or Home
Up)
and Next will find a phone number starting from that
point.

ADVANTAGES OF USING THE COMPUTER
TO DIAL

Using the computer avoids dialing errors -- you can check a number before you dial it.
Moreover,
you can dial phone numbers from a document, such as a phone list or Rolodex file.

Also important, the Comment feature of this macro optionally logs the call for later
reference. The
number, time and date, along with your comments, are stored in a phone log document
which can
be searched and sorted. It's easy to look up a phone number from your phone bill to see
who it
was you called, or you can look up a name, name fragment, or keyword to retrieve the
phone
number. You can also sort/select the phone log into a usage report, ordered by date, time,
phone
number, or words in the comment.

The advantages are even greater in firms with many computer users. The firm's
phone list can be
created as a WordPerfect document. On a network updates are instantaneous -- as soon as a
correction or addition is made to the central file, every user has the new information. Print
it for
your non-computer users. Distribute it on diskette to your standalone PC users. With a
single
easy-to-update reference point, you'll no longer risk out-of-date phone numbers or addresses,
nor
will you need to update printed phone lists or Rolodex cards on each desk.

Once the information is stored in a WordPerfect file, it's fast and flexible to use
Search/F2 to find
an entry by looking for a number, word, or fragment thereof. It's easy, for example, to find
an
entry by searching for a first name, title, or part of a company name.

THE PHONE LOG

After you've pressed Enter to dial a highlighted phone number, you may press "C" to
type some
comments for a phone log. Your comments and the phone number, date, and time will be
added
to the bottom of your phone log file.

Sorting the phone log. The phone log file may be easily searched (with
Search/F2). It can also be
sorted with Sort/Ctrl+F9. Select a paragraph-type sort and specify:

Line

Field

Word

To sort by

1

1

1

Phone number (spaces or slashes in phone # will require
further sort by word2, word3, etc.)

1

2

1

Month

1

2

3

Day

1

2

3

Year

1

2

-1

Day of week

2

1

1

First word on first line of text you typed

2

1

-1

Last word on first line of text you typed

You can get more sort mileage out of your phone log if you adopt a routine of typing
your
contact's name, company name, or account # as the first or last item on the first line of text.

Note: If you plan to sort, don't use TAB or INDENT (or
ENTER more than once) within the
comments you type as these serve as field delimiters.

KEYING IN THE DIAL MACRO

Use these keystrokes to enter the Macro Editor: [Home] [Macro Define/Ctrl+F10].
Name it
DIAL. Use the [Ctrl+PgUp] pick list to select {Commands} by pointing. For keystrokes
such as
{Block} and {Enter} that can't be directly typed in, begin with Ctrl+V, then press the key.
You
may use the TAB key to format, but no spaces. And
watch those tildes (~)!

MEMORY RESIDENT SOFTWARE TO DIAL
FROM ANY
SCREEN

The DIAL macro printed here works only within WordPerfect. It also cannot find
numbers in
document comments. So, if you want to dial phone numbers from a dBASE database or
your
time and billing software, you'll need to use a memory resident program.

Popular memory resident programs that will pick a phone number off any screen and
dial (with
street price):

Equip your computer to dial for you. If you make a lot of calls, invest $100 in a
headset, too; it's
valuable to have one's hands free to take notes or use a PC. Once you've set up your
modem and
dialing software, put your Rolodex in the machine. It will change the way you use your
phone!